One of my clients recently emailed me with this question:
I’m realizing that what’s in my way of getting started is trying to map it all out at once. What I need to do is to JUST GET STARTED. So I was wondering how much you started with and in a very general way how fast it grew from there.
Well, the first thing that came to mind was that I sure wouldn’t want my client to do what I did — because on the way to figuring out what works to build a sustainable business, I did all kinds of things wrong and made lots of silly (and expensive) mistakes!
Happily, it all worked out in the end – and I’m glad to share my best tips on how to get started building a sustainable coaching business without getting stuck in all the places I got stuck.
3 MUST-HAVE GOALS FOR YOUR BIZ
First of all, keep in mind that your business must do these three things if it’s going to be a sustainable business:
1) Get new customers
2) Keep existing customers
3) Grow the life-time value of your customers
So here’s where I recommend starting:
A SALES FUNNEL IS KEY
(Click to download the sales funnel pdf)
Offer a Free Sample & Build a Mailing List
Greet visitors to your blog or website with a welcoming smile and some refreshment (i.e., a free sample).Your free sample can be a special report, a collection of articles or even a “how to” tutorial delivered as an e-course. Of course, it’s not actually “free,” because to get it, visitors must give you their contact information and their permission to contact them in the future.
However you package it, your free sample should relate specifically to your target market–don’t try to appeal to the masses by being too generic. This is the first step in qualifying your customers — if someone takes the freebie it means they’re most likely a prospective customer (aka, a lead). It may seem counter-intuitive, but you don’t want the whole world to subscribe. You only want qualified prospective customers on your mailing list.
Keep in Touch
Next, focus on building relationship with your subscribers, earning their trust and confidence over time through your blog, newsletter and/or emails (autoresponders are great for this). Research shows that it typically takes between 8-20 contacts before a prospective customer is ready to make their first purchase.
It’s very important to offer niche-targeted, value-driven content (i.e., don’t just bombard them with promotional offers). As a general rule of thumb, try for 90% content and 10% offers in your emails.
A newsletter or ezine is ideal for keeping in touch over time, but if you don’t want to do a newsletter, a free ecourse would work, too. The idea is to build relationship and establish yourself as a credible expert over time, sort of like a drip irrigation system.
Whatever You Do, Don’t Make THIS Mistake!
One mistake that I see many coaches making (and I made this one myself in the early days!) is to throw together a freebie and then start trying to fill teleclasses or get 1-1 clients right out of the gate.
This is a mistake because there’s a pretty big gap between getting a free sample of something and having to shell out a couple of hundred dollars (or more) for a product or program.
You know you have a gap in your sales funnel if, after trying to fill a couple of big ticket events with the same 100 subscribers, you start to feel (and sound!) like a telemarketer. Your marketing system should shorten the sales cycle and make it easier to get, keep and grow the value of customers, not harder.
Instead, Convert Leads to Customers with an Introductory Product
Luckily, there’s an easy solution: close the gap between one end of your funnel and the other by adding an introductory product.
The purpose of an introductory product is to convert leads into customers. Your sample product was a freebie; now it’s time to offer your subscribers an opportunity to buy something. Research shows that the first sale takes longer and is much tougher to sell than the second, so be sure to make the first sale as easy and painless as possible. Do everything you can to minimize barrier to entry–your introductory product should be high value and low cost, with a 100% money-back guarantee that eliminates risk for the customer.
Happy Customers Tend to Stick Around and Buy More
When you have a consistent system in place for getting leads and converting leads to customers, you’ll find that it’s much easier to enroll existing customers in your core programs (like teleclasses and workshops) and even your premium packages (like 1-1 coaching).
I advise my clients (self-employed coaches) NOT to try and sell coaching to anyone except their own customers who have already bought at least one other product or package. If you want your business to be profitable and sustainable, segment your list into at least two parts — prospects and customers — and focus on offering introductory products to prospects so they don’t have quite so far to leap from one end of the funnel to the other. Otherwise, your poor prospects may fall out of the funnel all together!
Those are my best tips for how to start building a sustainable coaching business — feel free to leave a comment or question below!
©2007 by Kathleen L. Mallary. All Rights Reserved.
About the Author:
Kathy Mallary (aka, The Inspired Market-her) is a marketing strategist and business development coach who specializes in helping self-employed coaches find a lucrative niche and create signature coaching products and programs. Get fresh, simple strategies for building a one-of-a-kind, sustainable coaching business at www.coachingbiztips.com.
